In a majority of cases, structure-based approaches to the study of language abstract language from the context in which it is used. This abstraction results in reducing the immensely complex reality referred to as language to the less complicated and more ‘handleable’ object of structure. The current idealisation of structure-based approaches to the study of language is based on the assumption that an adequate, if not complete, understanding of language could be reached through an analysis of linguistic structure. As far as those aspects of language that an analysis of linguistic structure fails to explain are concerned, the structure based approaches either brand them as trivialities that are not worthy of serious attention, thereby creating grounds on which those aspects could be legitimately ignored, or package them into an “extra-linguistic” bundle and leave them out of any serious study of language. In my view, what make linguistics fundamentally flawed are the separation and compartmentalization of different but closely interrelated components of language and the glorification of linguistic structure.
One could argue that the abstraction of language from its context and reduction/conversion of language to a ‘handleable’ object are necessary for any study of language. Such arguments indicate our failure, if not lack of willingness, to even acknowledge the possibility of there being an understanding of language that is radically different from the existing understandings of language. They also indicate our lack of sensitivity to all the political and ideological implications of such an abstraction and reduction of the immensely complex reality of language.
The idealisation/glorification of linguistic structure that characterizes the discipline of linguistics restricts the space in which other aspects of language, especially those that have a direct bearing on the lives of the users of language (such as the role language plays in the construction of identities, the way language becomes a basis for division, and the role language plays as a site of struggle), could be adequately dealt with. In my view, researchers in the field of linguistics need to go beyond the boundaries of traditional linguistics, which provides the basis more for a mere glorification of linguistic structure than for a realistic understanding of language, and engage with the more dynamic aspects of language that have a direct bearing on the lives of its users.
One could argue that the abstraction of language from its context and reduction/conversion of language to a ‘handleable’ object are necessary for any study of language. Such arguments indicate our failure, if not lack of willingness, to even acknowledge the possibility of there being an understanding of language that is radically different from the existing understandings of language. They also indicate our lack of sensitivity to all the political and ideological implications of such an abstraction and reduction of the immensely complex reality of language.
The idealisation/glorification of linguistic structure that characterizes the discipline of linguistics restricts the space in which other aspects of language, especially those that have a direct bearing on the lives of the users of language (such as the role language plays in the construction of identities, the way language becomes a basis for division, and the role language plays as a site of struggle), could be adequately dealt with. In my view, researchers in the field of linguistics need to go beyond the boundaries of traditional linguistics, which provides the basis more for a mere glorification of linguistic structure than for a realistic understanding of language, and engage with the more dynamic aspects of language that have a direct bearing on the lives of its users.